Theodore Gordon is a musicologist and musician whose work connects experimental music, critical organology, and science and technology studies. He has performed with viola and Buchla instruments at venues including Elastic Arts, Experimental Sound Studio, and Roulette. Gordon is Assistant Professor of Music at Baruch College, and serves on the Doctoral Faculty at the CUNY Graduate Center. His first book, The Composer’s Black Box: Making Music in Cybernetic America, published in December 2025, shows how scientific concepts and technologies borrowed from cybernetics, information theory, and systems-thinking became catalysts for new musical organizations in the 1960s. This interview, like the book, focuses on these concepts through the work of Morton Subotnick, Donald Buchla, Pauline Oliveros, Sun Ra, and Alvin Lucier.

Music: As I Live & Breathe by Morton Subotnick, live at Other Minds 27; Silver Apples of the Moon by Morton Subotnick (Nonesuch Records); “The Cosmic Explorer” from Nuits de la Fondation Maeght by Sun Ra (Shandar); Mnemonics I by Pauline Oliveros; Vespers by Alvin Lucier

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).